came that way three nuns who dwelt in an abbey of nuns which was not a
great distance away from that place. These made great pity over that
sorrowful sight, and they took away from there the dead King and the woeful
Queen, and the King they buried in holy ground, and the Queen they let live
with them and she was thereafter known as the "Sister of Sorrows."

[Sidenote: How Launcelot dwelt in the lake] Now Launcelot dwelt for nigh
seventeen years with the Lady Nymue of the Lake in that wonderful,
beautiful valley covered over with the appearance of such a magical lake as
hath been aforetime described in the Book of King Arthur.

And that land of the lake was of this sort that shall here be described:--

Unto anyone who could enter into the magic water of that lake (and there
were very few of those who were mortal who were allowed to come to those
meadows of Faery that were there concealed beneath those enchanted waters)
he would behold before him a wide and radiant field of extraordinary
beauty. And he would behold that that field was covered all over with such
a multitude of exquisite and beautiful flowers that the heart of the
beholder would be elated with pure joy to find himself in the midst of that
waving sea of multitudinous and fragrant blossoms. And he would behold many
fair and shady groves of trees that here and there grew up from that
valley, each glade overshadowing a fountain of water as clear as crystal.
And he would perhaps behold, at such pleasant places beneath the shade of
those trees, some party of the fair and gentle folk of that country; and he
would see them playing in sport, or he would hear them chanting to the
music of shining golden harps. And he would behold in the midst of that
beautiful plain a wonderful castle with towers and roofs uplifted high into
the sky, and all shining in the peculiar radiance of that land, like to
castles and battlements of pure gold.